Thursday, November 6, 2008
A full 20 years after the outbreak of the Morris worm, in what is accepted as the first web security breach, the war of words concerning responsible disclosure continues, TechTarget has claimed.
According to the website, the first ever analysis of the worm - conducted by network security expert Gene Spafford of Purdue University in 1988 - brings to light some of the longstanding debates that been have held about how to report vulnerabilities.
During a meeting following the outbreak, experts decided that the reverse engineered coding of the Morris worm should not be made public.
"It was felt that the program exploited too many little-known techniques and that making it generally available would only provide other attackers [with] a framework to build another such program," Spafford claimed.
Now, 20 years later, TechTarget lamented that the fact that issues surrounding disclosure are still prevalent is "sad and endlessly frustrating."
One of the most recent arguments about how web and email security vulnerabilities should be disclosed arose after Google hit out at researchers who had found flaws in its new Android phone.
The search giant claimed that by reporting it to the New York Times, testers had broken an unspoken bond of trust.
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Facebook has Koobface - 12.5.2008
Despite its seemingly secure system, Facebook has been infected with a virus that aims to download malware onto users' computers.
Christmas malware emails on the prowl - 12.1.2008
Emails containing a link for an animated holiday card are an early present from malware attackers.
This year's unwanted Christmas presents - 11.28.2008
There will be a sharp rise in the number of phishing attacks and online fraud this Christmas, Dark Reading has warned.
